Activists protest animal cruelty at Pamplona festival

More than a hundred animal-rights activists gathered in the town square of Pamplona to protest animal cruelty at last week’s opening of the annual San Fermín festival, which brings hundreds of thousands of Spaniards and foreign visitors to the city each summer to witness the festival’s annual running of the bulls and related events.

Members of animal-rights groups AnimaNaturalis and PETA marched through downtown Pamplona streets to the town square carrying signs calling for an end to the cruelty inflicted on the bulls during the annual festival of the patron saint of the city, which this year runs from the 6th through the 13th of July.

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Activist groups say 48 bulls will be run through the streets of Pamplona during the festival, suffering serious contusions, hemorrhaging and broken bones, before arriving to the city’s bullring, where they are then set upon by a picador on horseback with a long pike as well as novilleros who spike the bulls with sharp banderillas. Ultimately, the bulls die exhausted from the trauma and wounds they suffer and are slaughtered at the end of the day.